Putting Wind in a Box

I've identified and admitted a behavior of mine. I have had it forever, but not always realized it was what I was doing.
Obsessing over things I can control when much of my world is OUT of my control.



For example, for the last couple of weeks I have been scouring some combination of Pinterest, Amazon, and Mommy-blogs to plan how I would pack my kids' lunch when they started "school." I wouldn't be with them during the day, and my situation is unfortunately not as ideal as it once was, but DOGGONEIT I CAN PACK A LUNCH! I'm going to post my own Pins to show just how awesome they are. (Reality check: 4/5 days one or both of them is getting some pre-packaged something.)

Ok, seriously. Name one person who has time for this and one kid who would appreciate it for what it's worth.

Just today I was sassy-fying my room more than I have in my seven years of teaching. I usually hate doing bulletin boards, but I maxed out with all kinds of fancy duct tape, layers of borders, and still haven't gotten to my cutesy-but-functional Teachers Pay Teachers content decorations yet.


My dear aunt asked what in the world was wrong with me. Then, "Oooh. I know what you're doing. You can control this environment."
She's right. I can choose, monitor, and dictate everything in that tiny classroom (at least until the students come, ha!) while I feel right now I'm white knuckling my way through everything else.
I crave stability and security, just like everyone else. I know my God is bigger than all the powers of the Earth combined (and Captain Planet), and I'm not saying He's not enough, but like a quip I heard long ago, sometimes I need someone with skin.
 Being a woman is hard. Being a mother is hard. Being a human is hard. There are so many forces out of our control every day. We have to be strong enough to fight them or strong enough to walk away. Either way, it ain't easy.

Ecclesiastes 8:8 MSG
"No one can control the wind or lock it in a box. No one has any say-so regarding the day of death. No one can stop a battle in its tracks..."

Just "Eh"

This whole "being honest" thing is hard. Because I want to tell you right now that I have done an awesome job eating healthy and making the best choices since my last post since in the last one I wasn't doing that great.
Well, I've been making mediocre choices most days, could have done worse, definitely could have done better. The words "lackluster" and "blase" come to mind. For example, today I had a good breakfast, measured my coffee creamer, the works. Then, hey, I wasn't going to just throw away the half of Max's frozen waffle he didn't eat. That couldn't count much, right? Then I went to an awesome 6-year-old's birthday party, which involved me getting in the pool, though nothing I did (or ever do) could be considered swimming. I only had two slices of pizza and I shared my delicious Spiderman cake with Max and Brynn. (Which meant Brynn ate all the icing off the top and Max ate most of the ice cream.) So again, I could have done worse.

For supper, I made everyone else pancakes (my favorite whole wheat recipe that uses honey instead of sugar and only 2 tablespoons of oil) and I had an egg and a piece of toast instead because it's easier to count points-wise. But then, hey, I wasn't just going to throw away the chocolate chip pancake I had already cut up for Brynn that she decided that she didn't want. (Obviously my daughter did not inherit my inability to recognize being full. Learned behavior, much??)

Not a problem in my house!

I am proud of myself because in spite of the terrible heat today and a borderline migraine part of the day, I was determined to go for a run tonight. I got the babies in bed and was giving the temperature as much time as possible to drop before I went. There were some dark clouds in the sky, but I thought they were far enough away, so I threw on my digs and went out the door.
  Thunder.
Dadblast it, I'm running.
Dark. Wind. Thunder.
Sigh. I made it halfway down the road I run the length of and decided I had better turn around. Thunder does make for good inspiration to run at a bit more brisk of a pace. I literally had been back inside my house for a minute and a half and the sky fell out.

Thank you, God, for waiting! I said.
Once upon a time, I would have used any and all of those factors not to go exercise. Granted, it was only 17 minutes, but that was 17 more minutes than I could have.
So yeah, at this rate I'm not going to be losing as much as fast as I could if I made perfect decisions every hour of every day (and just threw away what my kids don't eat). But you know what I'm kind of deciding? This is life. Is it better to be "perfect" for a good solid week or two then go stark-raving-eatitifitain'tnaileddown CRAZY until I can't take the guilt anymore than start over OR do the best you can at every given moment that you can?

                                               
Surely, eventually, some more of this "fat suit" I feel like I'm in will melt away at this rate. I really believe once the initial stress of starting school back settles as much as it does, the structure will help my decisions improve too since I won't have TIME to eat or ACCESS to anything except what I bring from home.
So, here's to blase being better than berserk any day.

"Compliments"

Everybody has figured out by now that words can--and more often do--hurt people much more than physical abuse ever could. That's usually what bullying is, and day to day getting your feelings hurt.
That being said, as an adult, I've never had anyone tell me I was fat or say something directly hurtful concerning my looks, at least not that I can think of right off. Well, this isn't counting the numerous people that said something to the effect of "You're huge!" when I was pregnant, which somehow is apparently acceptable??? Anyway, that's another blog another day.

However, I can think of at least a handful of things that people told me after I had LOST weight that were particularly scarring.

At a get-together a lady seeing me get small portions, "Well, gosh, you could eat more than that."
 This one may not read as particularly hurtful, but if you saw her face, you would have felt the tone. Also, as one who does not generally enjoy bring attention to herself except when given a particular role to do so, this made me way more conspicuous than I would have liked. I wonder if this remark is one reason I have a very very hard time making good choices at public eating "events." I don't want anyone to look at my plate and know I'm dieting, because then they might feel the need to talk about it.

Someone I don't even remember who, "You sure are showing off your new body, aren't you?" 
If any of you have lost a considerable amount of weight before, you'll know why this was disturbing. You don't know HOW to dress when you have a "new body." When you've been dressing in clothes that just cover and hide, questions like How tight? How loose? are very difficult to answer. So for someone to suggest I was being inappropriate was embarrassing to me. I've always dressed on the modest side, and just because I was thinner didn't change that--I thought. So then I really didn't know how to dress.

After seeing a friend after a while, "Lacy, you used to have such a pretty figure! Now you're just.....nothing."
This one doesn't require an explanation.

I'm not blaming these things for making me gain weight back (plus some) again, but it certainly didn't do a thing for my self-esteem.  Why do we know it's not okay to remark (at least to people's faces) about them being overweight, sloppy, an overeater, but the same doesn't apply if you are thin and eating healthy?
Jealousy is a big guess at least when it involves women. I know to make myself feel better I've said (to myself) things like, "Well, she's just too thin." or "She can't be happy. She's just hungry."

It should be a rule that unless your comment looks something like this template :

you should just keep your comment to yourself. Because you may think that your statement about how thin someone has gotten will make them feel good, but it probably won't. It has been 10 or 11 years since I heard those lines, and I still fear what I might hear as I lose weight again. Hopefully I'm stronger, more mature, and less sensitive now, but it certainly has taught me to be even more careful with my words.